A New Journey
by Starapollo1
Summary: Follow Professor Elm's son as he struggles to develop his unique training style and become a new gym leader in the Jhoto region!


Chapter 1:

Hello. My name is Max and I was born into a family that is Pokémon obsessed. Thus, since I was born, Pokémon has been my entire life. My dad is Bryan Elm, otherwise known as Professor Elm. In addition to being a highly credited Pokémon researcher, he is an advocate of good oral hygiene and a belief in hands on learning –When I was three, to teach me how to swim, he threw me in a pool of water and walked away. My mother is Mary Elm; she was a professional contest coordinator with her prized Rapidash, and now works at the Laramie Ranch in the Kanto region. My mother and father use the excuse of their geographic division to go on extravagant vacations around the world together quite frequently.

The oldest in my family is my sister Ana (Ah-na) Elm. She was the first person to complete and categorize all Pokémon native to the Jhoto region. Currently she is the gym leader at the Violet City Gym where she recently took over Falkner's position.

As for me? My story begins when I was 9 years old and I received my first Pokémon! It wasn't actually a full fledge Pokémon that I could battle with, but it was an egg that Misty gave to me. Misty is the Cerulean City gym leader and a close friend to my dad. When her Pokémon were staying with him, her Poliwhirl produced an egg that I got to keep!

After receiving the egg my dad allowed me to travel with Misty back to her gym to observe her training style and learn from her. The egg hatched just before my tenth birthday, and thus Poliwag became my first Pokémon. I refer to him as Bubbles. My second Pokémon was the starter I received when Misty took me to Professor Oak on my tenth birthday. I selected a Squirtle that I nicknamed Squirt.

With two Pokémon at the age of 10, you would think I was ready to travel, but truthfully, my dad is BIG into family time… and embarrassing me. Before he would let me travel by myself he insisted we travel to see my cousin, Fred, compete in the Silver Conference.

March 30, 2004

"Welcome to our final match for the Indigo League's top 8! Today we have Fred Hess from Goldenrod facing up against Mark Gold from Celadon City. The field type will be a rock field. This is a six on six match. Mark has won the coin toss and so Fred must select his Pokémon first." The referee speaking pointed to a young man with long curly brown hair.

Fred tossed some of his hair over his shoulder and threw a Pokéball up into the air. Emerging after a flash of light was a Ninetales. Its eyes were glowing and it positioned itself on all fours, clearly ready for a battle.

Mark smiled. "I figured you would pick that. Get a load of this!" He tossed out a Pokéball to reveal a Golem.

"Let the match begin!" blared over the speakers.

"Golem use dig!" Golem dove into the ground, digging effortlessly.

"Ninetales use earthquake." Before Golem could even fully submerge itself it was shot up into the air by the force of the earthquake. "Ninetales use hyperbeam." Ninetales create a ball of energy in its mouth and shot a beam of light at Golem.

"Golem dodge!"

The beam of light was too fast for Golem to dodge and the force sent Golem flying across the field.

I stared in awe at my cousin's fluid battle strategy. His opponents never even had a chance to use a move before he had countered it. His Ninetales easily took out Mark's Golem despite a clear type disadvantage. Ninetales ended up taking out Mark's Butterfree before finally drawing with a Slowbro. A fifteen minute recess was taken as Mark had lost his first three Pokémon.

"Come on, Max!" whispered my dad. He took me out of the stands and back into the tunnels connected to the battle arena. We traveled to the waiting room which was directly attached to the battle field. Fred was in there talking to two older men.

"Fred!" I exclaimed, running up to him and hugging him.

Fred hugged me back and smiled, "How are you doing kid?"

"I'm doing awesome, but not as awesome as _you_! You've only lost one Pokémon! You used a fire type to beat a rock type _and_ draw with a water type!"

"It's not always about type kid, Ninetales is one of my stronger Pokémon. That Mark guy is holding out on me."

"What do you mean?" I asked, wondering why someone who has five strong Pokémon left be worried.

"I looked over his roster very closely before we battled today," he explained. "Butterfree and Slowbro are not two of his stronger Pokémon. His Golem is, admittedly, usually an ace up his sleeve, but he is known for his speedy psychics which we haven't seen yet. I still have to beat his Alakazam and that is _not_ something I'm looking forward too."

"Surely you've got some good bug types! Or even better, a dark!"

"As you just saw Max, it's not about just types. –though it does help I've seen his Alakazam battle, it barely even needs direction from a trainer."

"ATTENTION! This is the official two-minute warning. Please return to your seats so we may continue the match."

Fred leaned over and hugged me. "Thanks for coming down buddy." He turned to my dad, "Uncle Bryan, thanks for the advice on his Jynx, if he uses it, I'll be ready." He hugged my dad and then returned to the battle arena. I headed back up to the stands with my dad and waited for the resolution of the match.

After the break, Mark sent out his Mr. Mime which tied with Fred's Venusaur. With four Pokémon left, Fred sent out his Scyther which defeated Mark's Hypno but was instantly knocked out with a fire punch from the infamous Alakazam. Alakazam proceeded to defeat Fred's Charizard and Houndoom making for a one on one, Sneasel versus Alakazam.

"Alakazam use fire punch!"

"Sneasel Agility!"

Even with Sneasel's incredibly speedy, Alakazam easily kept pace and planted a solid fire punch right into Sneasel's chest. The attack was devastating for Sneasel which was struggling to keep up. Sneasel was one of Fred's newer Pokémon and was clearly only in the party today for type advantage.

"Sneasel use blizzard!"

Alakazam spun around and used fire punch with no direction from Mark. It melted away at the ice around itself, avoiding all damage.

"Sneasel use faint attack!"

Using the blizzard as a distraction Sneasel easily took Alakazam by surprise.

"Shadow punch!" Sneasel bounced back after the initial punch and delivered a shadow punch, squarely landing its target and blasting Alakazam back, fainted.

"Alakazam is unable to battle. The winner of this round and the match is Fred from Goldenrod!"

The crowd, myself included, erupted and I watched as Mark and Fred shook hands. I ran to meet Fred downstairs and when he saw me he smiled weakly. I knew something was wrong.

"You should be happy you won!" I said.

"It's more complicated than that Max. His Alakazam took down three of my Pokémon, almost four. If I hadn't landed some solid attacks with Charizard I wouldn't have lasted a minute."

"But that's why you have six Pokémon, don't be upset about winning!"

"I'm not upset. It was a hard fought victory, I'm just disappointed that I psyched myself out. I should never have used Sneasel and Houndoom just because of type advantage. I should have used my Persian or Rhydon which are a much higher level."

"Well you are in the final four! You could still win this thing!"

"Maybe, but I'm not going to get ahead of myself." Fred hugged me again before heading out of the stadium. I caught a glimpse of myself in a vendor's glass window and I notice my brown hair was going everywhere. I withdrew a blue hat from backpack and placed it over my hair. _If I can't fix it, might as well hide it_ I thought. I was more excited now than ever before to begin my journey.


End file.
